Inquest into Albert Luthuli’s death: A family's search for truth

THE NATIONAL Archives Advisory Council chairperson, Sibongile Mnyandu-Nzimande, described at the inquest into Inkosi Albert Luthuli’s death this week how her father died heartbroken because of her uncle's disappearance without a trace at a young age after being kidnapped by apartheid police.

- BONGANI HANS

Mnyandu-Nzimande, who was born in 1957, said police kidnapped her uncle after he had witnessed white men assaulting Luthuli at the Umvoti River railway bridge, Groutville, outside Stanger in the north coast on the morning of July 21, 1967.

She was testifying at the reopened inquest, which the National Prosecuting Authority established to dispel findings of an initial inquest held in 1967, shortly after Luthuli’s death from injuries at the Stanger Provincial Hospital.

The initial inquiry has concluded that Luthuli had died after being hit by a goods steam train through his failure to avoid it while walking on the bridge, and that there was no one to be held accountable.

She said she was never told about the name of her kidnapped uncle, although her father said his parents and siblings loved him.

The former head of the Department of Arts and Culture said her father, Phothwayo Barnabus Mnyandu, had succeeded her grandfather, Thomas Mnyandu, to be traditional leader at La Mercy on the north coast.

“My father lived and died with a heavy heart from the disappearance of his brother at the hands of the police.”